“‘I know your works, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead. Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die, for I have not found your works perfect before God.’”

  - Revelation 3.1, 2

Watch, for the sea is stormy and whipped up by fatal blasts, for it is not a solitary threatening wave such as, even across a silent ocean, is raised to overweening heights from the ever-foaming eddies of a hollow rock...Watch, for water has now entered the vessel of the Church, and the vessel is in perilous straits.

  - Columbanus, Letter to Pope Boniface, Irish, 7th century[1]

Columbanus (fl. Early 7^th century) recognized that the Church in Gaul, where he had come as a missionary from Ireland, was little more than a shell, a sham, and a shame.

The ministers had ceased preaching the Word of God, though they continued the formal services of worship; and they had taken up whoring and seeking the favor of kings and courts.

The sheep were scattered, held together only by the formalistic bonds of ritual and tradition, but dying for want of the Word and Spirit. Everywhere the Church was in decline and decay.

What to do?

Columbanus decided to write to their boss in Rome: “Can’t you do something about the wretched condition of your churches and these wretched men who serve them?”

You can imagine that didn’t go over too well with the clergy in Gaul, or the Pope, for that matter.

But when the Church is deceived about its health and its leaders are not acting in a responsible manner; when the sheep are untaught, living in sin, and frail and famished for want of proper feeding; when the ways of the world are washing over the decks of the church, from worship to how we order how churches for ministry – when such conditions obtain, a godly person cannot sit by and say, “This, too, shall pass.”

At any rate, Columbanus couldn’t. Nor should we.

Our churches are quite content with the state of things, thinking themselves very much alive. Are they? Really? It looks more to me like their works are not as complete as they should be – making disciples, worshiping in Spirit and truth, loving one another, caring for the poor and distressed, reaching out with the Gospel of the Kingdom, sharing in one another’s lives.

Waves of secular and materialistic thinking have washed over the Church, leaving the flotsam and jetsam of pop culture, marketing schemes, and worldly organization strewn about on the deck. The Church may not be sinking, but she’s taking on water like there’s no tomorrow.

Someone needs to dress down the crew, man the bilge pumps, and demand a new course.

And why shouldn’t that be you and I?

Psalm 125.4, 5 (St. Gertrude: “Onward, Christian Soldiers”)
Lord, do good and care for those upright in heart.
Those who turn to evil shall from You depart.
Sinful men may increase; lead them, Lord to hell!
Save Your people, let your peace abound in Israel!
  All who trust in Jesus, strong as Zion stand!
  Naught shall ever move them from their promised land!

What can I do, O Lord, to help keep the Church from becoming more like the world around us?

T. M. Moore, Principal
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Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.